


The first snow

by Anti_kate



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pining, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anti_kate/pseuds/Anti_kate
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley encounter snow for the first time. Written for Drawlight’s Good Omens advent calendar.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	The first snow

At first it had seemed the world was all desert, nothing but rocks and sand and the vast sky, the stars wheeling endlessly above.

There were dunes and oases and wadis and human feet bare against the burning heat of the day and the cold of the desert night. But a few hundred years after Eden - 337 to be exact, but who was counting apart from one angel, trudging through the snow - the humans had spread out in ever widening circles, forming bands and tribes and even small towns, moving from the desert to fertile plains, to forests, to mountain foothills.

As Aziraphale walked steadily upwards, he was glad he was wearing shearling boots, because this new-to-him form of weather was wet and very chilly and rather unpleasantly slippery underfoot. It flew into his face alarmingly, and it made the world sound muffled and dull. He had of course known that parts of the world were cold, but the reality of snow was very different from the theoretical knowledge that it existed. He didn’t need to experience it, of course, but if he came upon any humans questions would be asked. Verisimilitude and all that.

That the hermit had chosen to live in a cave halfway up a mountain and not, say, in a shack by a nice beach or in a pleasant sunny meadow was, Aziraphale was coming to understand, par for the course for holy men. As was body odour and a penchant for long beards. And it was never holy women, was it? Women seemed to be far too busy doing all the work to live in caves halfway up a mountain and expect all their food to appear via celestial messenger.

No. These thoughts would not do. This was his work, his reason for being. The holy man was actually rather holy, if also a bit whiffy.

All Aziraphale had to do was appear before him, flash a bit of wing, deliver a few suitably vague prophetic statements about the chosen people, give him a sack of hard chewy bread and a goatskin of sour wine so he didn’t starve to death before delivering the prophecies to his people, and then he could find somewhere less wet and cold. He could have flown up the hill but the snow was coming down thick and heavy and he suspected his visibility would have been essentially zero. So hiking it was.

And then, ahead, he saw something moving between the trees. He slowed, cautious. There were plenty of wild animals in these hills, and discorporation by mountain lion wouldn’t look good on the paperwork.

He stepped forward. There, in a small clearing, stood a familiar figure. Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something rude like _begone foul but rather engaging fiend_ or _I cast thee out, irritatingly amusing serpent_ , but he paused. Crawly was standing in the snow with his eyes shut, his head tipped back.

The snow had fallen all over his black cloak, and the long curls of his hair. Then he stuck out his tongue, and let snowflakes fall on it, then laughed. Aziraphale wasn’t sure he’d heard Crawly laugh like that before. Sly sniggers, yes, certainly. But that laugh was something else. It seemed almost joyful. Aziraphale felt as if he’d seen something he shouldn’t.

“Good day demon!” 

“Aziraphale!” Crawly turned, and beckoned to him, still smiling. “Come here!”

Aziraphale approached. He saw, as he got closer, how the snowflakes glittered against Crawly’s hair.

Demons didn’t have any right looking so... so... whatever it was that Crawly looked, dark and red and sharp against the soft white.

“Come closer, I won’t bite,” the demon said, then grinned. “Unless you ask me nicely.”

“Crawly,” Aziraphale said reproachfully.

“Fine. But look.” He held out one black-clad arm, and snowflakes drifted onto it.

“It’s snow. A form of precipitation,” Aziraphale said. “And it’s everywhere.”

Crawly huffed. “No, look closer. Look properly.”

Aziraphale looked, and then looked more closely. Each snowflake was purest white against the rough black fabric of Crawly’s sleeve. He saw, at once, the feathery, six-armed delicacy of each one, the precise geometric shapes of them. Arms and arms, branches, feathers, fractals within fractals. Some were broken, some were whole, each was different from the next, but they were all beautiful.

“I’ve counted at least 30 different basic shapes,” Crawly said, his breath warm on Aziraphale’s cheek.

“Remarkable,” Aziraphale said. “How do you think...” He stopped himself then. He was holding Crawly’s arm with both hands, and he could feel sharp bones through the fabric and flesh.

“I wouldn’t have thought your kind would go in for the whole marvelling at the glory and wonders of creation and all that,” he said, instead, letting go and stepping back.

Something flickered across Crawly’s face and his expression shuttered. “So, what are you doing here?” he said, in his rather more usual tone.

“Bringing visions to a holy hermit,” Aziraphale said, hoping that was vague enough.

“Stinky hairy guy who lives halfway up there in a horrible little cave?” Crawly gestured towards the mountainside hidden in the clouds above them.

 _Bugger._ They were going towards the same target.

Aziraphale looked away from the other’s direct golden gaze. “Possibly,” he mumbled.

Crawly heaved a sigh. “So what will we do when we get up there, then? Each give him a quick little presentation so he can choose between us? Wrestle for his soul? Will you smite me? Or shall I burn you?”

Aziraphale opened his mouth and shut it again. For all the time they spent on earth in close proximity, they’d never been in precisely this situation before. And he really didn’t like the idea of smiting Crawly. He was a demon, but he was tolerable. Funny. Charming, in a strange way. Goodness knows who’d they’d send in his place.

Crawly made another of his odd noises, a rather decisive one now. “So, here’s what I’m going to do. I don’t want to climb up there and give myself frostbite anyway. I’m going to walk back down to the nearest village and get drunk by a nice fire. You can have the hermit. I’ll tell downstairs you thwarted me most mightily. It’s not like they ever check on the reports. And then I’ll get the next one. Ok? Ok.”

“Ah, I, but...” Aziraphale said, rather feeling this was cheating, but Crawly had already begun strolling off down where Aziraphale’s footprints were already mostly obscured beneath fresh snow.

“Come and find me for a drink later,” the demon called over his shoulder.

“I will most certainly not,” Aziraphale shouted after him.

And then he drew his cloak tighter around him, and continued walking into the snow, and steadfastly refused to let his mind linger on the way the snow had gleamed in Crawly’s hair.

**Author's Note:**

> As an Australian living in Canada, all Aziraphale’s thoughts about snow can be attributed to, well, me.  
> I am @thevoidthestars on Tumblr.


End file.
